Now, polling at a society near you

Next year’s municipal elections may see a different kind of trend. This is not about the way we vote but where we vote. If a proposal to install polling booths in housing societies kicks off, some of us may be able to vote in the happy confines of our society. It’s an ‘if’ though.

The state election commission has asked the BMC to set up polling booths in societies that have the space and are willing to lend it. The idea is untested in the state and, perhaps, in India.

State election commissioner Neela Satyanarayana’s brainchild stems from her concern for the physically-challenged and senior voters who cannot climb up to the first or second-storey booths to cast their vote. As most polling booths are housed in municipal schools that don’t have elevators, she scrolled through the law.

On finding that the law permits requisitioning of private premises, she earnestly wrote to the 10 municipal chiefs of cities that go to polls, asking them to try it out.

The advantage is access to elevators, washrooms, shades, shorter queues and drinking water facilities. As Mumbai has a number of large residential complexes with decent common areas like society offices or halls, it may be possible to convert them into polling booths, provided the society wants to.

But how many societies will want to hand over their premises to the election commission for the comfort of voting and, in return, have cops pounding their doors and restricting their access for three to four days? Murmurs of protest are already being heard. As it is, the upper and middle classes don’t care much for civic polls.

As there are 1,000-1,200 voters per booth, outsiders will come into the society to vote, which may not be welcome to most trespass-averse Mumbaikars. That could put paid to the election commission’s hope of getting slumdwellers and others to vote in a neighbouring residential colony instead of forming long queues outside schools.

On the administration side, the problem is worse. A key condition is that the societies should not have a political or religious ideology. Verifying this is tricky. And, with its resources spread thin, the election staff may not be able to ensure absence of propaganda on the society premises. Security too is of utmost concern and runs the risk of being compromised in a private setting.

To publicise the idea, the municipal commissioners are expected to advertise on TV channels and other media. Civic chiefs are frowning at this unwarranted expense. A senior officer says it was precisely to safeguard the apolitical requirement that polling booths are set up in schools in the first place.

The day our class differences blur and we become predominantly law-abiding, we may develop the confidence to pitch our polling booths on the pavement as they do in Thailand. Till then, polling on private premises will keep the staff and voters a bit on the edge.